The Crucible: Rock ’n’ Roll in the Windy City, 1945–1963

WHERE DID ROCK 'N' ROLL, the name coined in the 1950s to describe rhythm and blues–derived music, originate? Some say that Memphis, Tennessee, the home of Sam Phillips's Sun Studios and the "King of Rock 'n' Roll, " Elvis Presley, was the cradle of the music. 1 Others vouch for Cleveland, where deejay Alan Freed popularized the term "rock 'n' roll" and organized groundbreaking traveling shows of musical stars. 2 Maybe New Orleans, the home of boogie-woogie pianist Fats Domino; Macon, Georgia, the city that produced Little Richard, the self-proclaimed "Architect of Rock 'n' Roll"; or the area surrounding Ferriday in eastern Louisiana, the hometown of "The Killer, " Jerry Lee Lewis deserve the credit for cultivating the music. 3 Some go further back into history and look at the rural back roads of the southern states to find the music's roots. 4 Yet, surely, few places could compete with 1950s Chicago as the crucible of rock 'n' roll music. It was here that electric blues developed in the post–World War II era, and it was here, as blues great Muddy Waters sang, "The Blues had a baby and they named it Rock and Roll. " Subsequently, a buoyant rock 'n' roll scene emerged as Black and white, southern and midwestern migrants, some of whom settled in the city and others who passed through the area before pursuing a career elsewhere, produced some of the most innovative and exhilarating music of the era. Chicago began as a frontier trading post in the late eighteenth century, but it quickly became a thriving metropolis on the southwestern bank of Lake Michigan. In the wake of the Great Fire of 1871, a modern city of towering steel, glass, and stone skyscrapers arose from the prairie. The main downtown business and shopping area, the Loop, so named because of the streetcar lines and elevated train tracks that circled the downtown area, thrived as companies innovated in commerce and retail. The growth of textile factories, iron and steel works, and sprawling stockyards helped make Chicago a leading industrial conurbation. Chicago, the capital of the Midwest, went on to prosper as a transportation hub of railroads, freeways, and airways that linked the country. The city's affluence attracted people from all regions of the nation and from European countries such as Ireland, Germany, Russia, Italy, and Poland, as the Windy City developed into a vibrant cultural crossroads. 5The prosperity enjoyed by so many in the nation's second-largest city helped finance the infrastructure required for a thriving music scene. Music venues (which ranged from big concert halls to small clubs) independent record labels, high-tech recording studios, and radio and television stations, dotted the landscape. Chicago Musical Instruments Company became the industry's foremost manufacturer and distributor of musical instruments. 6 Harmony and Kay, the nation's preeminent makers of stringed instruments (banjos, violins, ukuleles, cellos, mandolins, and guitars), hailed from the city. 7 Local companies Seeburg and Rock-Ola built and loaded jukeboxes, turning Chicago into the epicenter of jukebox production. The thousands of African American migrants who fled the southern states in the Great Migration of the post–World War I period and journeyed to the promised land of Chicago transformed the music of the Windy City. 8 Jazz was born in New Orleans but reached maturity in 1920s Chicago, as Tennessean Lillian Hardin and "Big Easy" natives Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong produced thrilling and groundbreaking sounds in the city's hotels, ballrooms, nightclubs, and recording studios. 9 Chicago, too, was the birthplace of gospel music in the interwar period, as legendary innovators, including the "Queen of Gospel, " Mahalia Jackson, from New Orleans, and the "Father of Gospel, " Thomas Dorsey, from Georgia, called the city home. 10Interwar Chicago became home to a vibrant community of Black female singers, including the irrepressible Gertrude "Ma" Rainey. Rainey, who was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1886, began singing in traveling shows in the South as a teenager and migrated to Chicago in the early 1920s. Dressed to impress in sequined satin dresses, feathers, headbands, and pearl necklaces, she honed her craft in the city's nightclubs and theaters. Rainey signed for Paramount Records and recorded over one hundred songs, including the classic "See See Rider Blues, " on which she was accompanied by Louis Armstrong. Her deep voice often descended into moaning or yelling as she belted out songs filled with lust, longing, and regret, earning her the nickname "Mother of the Blues. " Rainey died in 1939 but remained an inspiration for female singers, including Bessie Smith, Tina Turner, and Janis Joplin. Alongside the slick jazz blues sound of Ma Rainey, an acoustic style of country blues music, originating in the rural areas of the southern states, matured in interwar Chicago. Texan Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson became one of the biggest selling blues singers in the nation when he recorded more than a hundred titles in the city, most of them for Paramount Records. Jefferson died in mysterious circumstances in Chicago in 1929 at the age of thirty-six. 11 In the 1930s, Lester Melrose enjoyed an illustrious career as producer and talent scout, making hundreds of innovative records in Chicago for the Okeh and Bluebird record labels that added rhythm sections to the basic acoustic blues sound. 12In the post–World War II years, African American musicians in the city cultivated a distinctive style of blues music called electric blues or Chicago blues. The solo singer, accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar, held sway in country blues music. But spurred on by the raucous crowds in the bars and clubs on the city's South Side, Chicago musicians played loud, energetic music using booming drums, the state-of-the-art sound of amplified electric guitars, and a strident vocal style. 13 Chief among them was Muddy Waters, who was born McKinley Morganfield in Mississippi in 1913 and arrived in the Windy City some thirty years later to pursue his dream of becoming a professional musician. He started performing as a solo artist but soon formed his own combo. "This was the first Rock we had our own clubs. "15Headquartered on South Cottage Grove and then most famously at 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Chess Records, founded by Leonard and Phil Chess, two Jewish brothers from Poland, built its reputation as one of the most iconic record labels in the world by recording this new and thrilling music. Indicative of the impact of the Great Migration, Chess included on its roster three Mississippian-born legends: Muddy Waters; Chester Arthur Burnett, better known as Howlin' Wolf for his booming voice; and Willie Dixon, who became an outstanding session musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer for the label. 16Those dens of iniquity on the South Side produced many R&B stars, but so too did those Christian churches that inspired their congregations to make music that nurtured the soul rather than stimulating the loins. The "Godmother of Rock 'n' Roll, " Sister Rosetta Tharpe, was born Rosetta Nubin in Arkansas in 1915 and followed the route of so many other southern migrants when she settled with her mother in the Windy City in the mid-1920s. A gifted musician from a young age, the pastor in the Church of God in Christ placed the pint-sized prodigy on a table so the congregation could witness Tharpe's prodigious singing and guitar-picking skills. Tharpe absorbed the blues and jazz music she heard outside the church door and honed her distinctive sound in Chicago before she moved to New York City in 1938. "Strange Things Happening Every Day, " her 1945 hit, has been hailed by many as the first rock 'n' roll song. Standing proudly on center stage rather than sitting down as many blues guitarists did, Sister Rosetta, as she became known, went on to inspire audiences with her spiritual lyrics and loud, distorted electric guitar sound. She stood out as the lone female among a sea of male guitar heroes. 17Another Arkansas native, Louis Jordan, who became an innovator of jump blues, an upbeat hybrid of jazz and urban blues and a precursor of rock 'n' roll, kicked off his career in Chicago. Jordan began performing in the big band era, playing in orchestras in New York and Philadelphia. In the late 1930s, he started his own group, the Tympany Five, where he narrowed the sound down to saxophone, piano, stand-up bass, and drums and added a high energy comedic stage routine. Jordan's big break came during World War II when he played a residency at the Capitol Lounge in the Loop. Jordan went on to perform at a number of venues in the city, including the famous Regal and Chicago Theaters. Throughout the 1940s, he based himself in Harvey, in south suburban Chicago, and developed his sound as he met and played with local blues and jazz musicians. "I played the Capitol Lounge for two years before going to Milwaukee, " Jordan remembered in 1963, citing his time in Chicago as a turning point in his career. "After I returned to the Windy City, I. . . made 'Outskirts of Town. ' From then on, I hit big. "18"I'm Gonna Leave You on the Outskirts of Town, " recorded in Chicago and released in 1942, began a period of chart dominance for Jordan. 19 "Jordan's rise, while powered by a national reputation and market, drew on the incubator quality of the music community in Chicago, and disseminated its stories and practices more broadly throughout the country, " claimed historian of Black Chicago Adam Green, summing up Jordan's career. 20 Jordan acted as a bridge from the big band jazz era to early rock 'n' roll. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame declared that "Saturday Night Fish Fry, " released in 1949, was the first rock 'n' roll recording. 21 Chuck Berry hailed Jordan as an influence, as did Bill Haley, who recorded with Milt Gabler, the producer of many of Louis Jordan's hits. Deejays and music papers increasingly referred to the rhythm and blues music played by people like Rosetta Tharpe and Louis Jordan as "rock 'n' roll. " "Rock 'n' roll, " a term used in some R&B tunes to describe sexual intercourse, was popularized by Cleveland deejay Alan Freed as an alternative to the more hard-edged African American term "rhythm and blues. " Record companies adopted the label to sell the music to a mass audience. Stylistically, the music evolved as it incorporated country and pop influences and was played at a faster tempo. While many of the original rhythm and blues songs addressed adult themes, rock 'n' roll increasingly espoused the concerns of youngsters, and the record business aimed the music at a bourgeoning teenage market. "If you tried to give rock 'n' roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry, " John Lennon of the Beatles claimed on The Mike Douglas Show in February 1972, attesting to Berry's influence on the genre. 22 Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in October 1926, Charles "Chuck" Berry played his guitar in the clubs of his hometown, where he performed the songs of Chess greats Muddy Waters and Elmore James and started to integrate country and western influences into his rhythm and blues repertoire. He headed north to Chicago looking for a record deal and met Muddy Waters, who introduced him to the Chess brothers. While Waters and other blues musicians found it difficult to achieve commercial success, Berry had no such problem with his exciting live performances, including his famous duckwalk across the stage, his fast-paced music, and his humorous and poetic lyrics that touched a chord with teenage America. Berry's first single on Chess, "Maybellene, " reached number 5 on the Billboard chart in the summer of 1955, and he enjoyed four more Top 10 hits before his star waned at the end of the decade. 23Chuck Berry's popularity reached across the Atlantic, but not without opposition from the upholders of public decency. In 1956, the London label in the UK released "Maybellene" as part of a four-song EP. The song failed to gain traction as the BBC, which monopolized radio broadcasting in the country, refused to play the record. The rather prim and proper heads of the BBC worried that the girl who Berry sang about as not being "true" was probably sleeping around! However, the BBC had no such qualms about playing subsequent Chuck Berry records. Berry's first entry in the UK charts, "School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell), " reached number 24 in the summer of 1957, and "Sweet Little Sixteen" appropriately peaked at number 16 the following year. 24Ellas Otha Bates, another Mississippi migrant, moved to Chicago as a child in the mid-1930s and was inspired to become a musician by the music he heard in local churches. He started playing Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker songs in the bars on the city's South Side in the 1950s. Under the moniker Bo Diddley, he began recording with Chess and released his first single, "Bo Diddley, " in 1955. Diddley recorded several classic 45s that featured his distinctive chugging guitar riff that universally became known as the Bo Diddley beat. He failed to reach the upper echelons of the charts, but other musicians, including the British invasion groups of the 1960s, recognized his brilliance. The Beatles covered his music in their early club shows, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Yardbirds recorded his songs, and the Pretty Things took their name from a Bo Diddley song, as did the famous Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, England, where the Stones, the Yardbirds, and other British blues acts first started out. 25 "I never got the credit for it, " Diddley told an interviewer in 1996 about the lack of recognition for helping to invent rock 'n' roll. "In the beginning there was Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, and that's all there was. I held the door open and everyone ran through it. Then I was left standing there with the door knob in my hand. "26There was far more to Chicago rhythm and blues music than just Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Chess Records. Distributors and labels proliferated on a ten-block stretch of South Michigan Avenue known as Record Row. Cobra Records, located on Chicago's West Side, and other record labels, such as Chance, Parrot, and United, played a significant role in making the city a hub of musical activity. 27Vee-Jay Records, named after the first letters of its African American owners, the husband-and-wife team of Vivian Carter and James Bracken, played a major part in the evolution of rock 'n' roll after its founding in 1953. To the ambitious Indiana natives, the bright lights of Chicago proved a sparkling attraction as they established the label's headquarters on South Michigan Avenue, across the street from Chess. Vee-Jay included blues artists such as John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed on its roster, as well as doo-wop greats such as the Dells, the El Dorados and the Spaniels. Doo-wop, so-called because of the backing words used by groups of youngsters who sang multi-part vocal harmonies, had its roots in blues and gospel and quickly fell under the now expanding umbrella of rock 'n' roll. Vee-Jay and the other labels used the many recording studios in Chicago, including Ter-Mar, housed in the Chess building, RCA, Columbia, and Universal Studios, a state-of-the-art recording studio frequented by prominent visiting musicians. 28An often-overlooked record label in the development of rock 'n' roll is Mercury, the only major label based in Chicago. Mercury, headquartered on Wacker Drive, began operations in 1945. The company soon opened a pressing plant in Chicago and competed for talent with major recording labels such as Columbia, Decca, Capitol, and RCA Victor. The label specialized in jazz but also released many cover versions of rhythm and blues songs by white singers. Mercury soon issued a substantial number of R&B and rock 'n' roll records by artists such as the Platters, Brook Benton, the Ravens, Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys, the Big Bopper, and "the godfather of rhythm and blues, " Johnny Otis. 29For an ambitious African American musician like teenager Edward Harrington from Macon, Mississippi, Chicago beckoned. "When I was 17 years old, I wanted to play music and they said that I had more opportunities there to make a career in music, which was my whole ambition in the early '50s. " After migrating to Chicago, Harrington picked up the electric guitar and performed his raucous blues style in South Side and West Side juke joints, bars, and clubs in his distinctive left-handed style. Opportunities were plentiful for a struggling musician, as "there was so many bands! There was a lot of places to play back then. " Harrington sat in with blues greats Muddy Waters and Little Walter before his reputation grew, and he took the spotlight, playing music that straddled the growing divide between blues and rock 'n' roll. 30 In 1958, he recorded his first record, "Hill Billy Blues, " for the local Atomic-H label under the name Clear Waters, an apparent tribute to Muddy Waters. Harrington continued to record and perform under the stage name Eddy Clearwater. He admired the pioneering rock 'n' roll sound of Chuck Berry, especially evident in his 1961 single "Cool Clear Water. " He made a career playing blues in the clubs on the South Side and rock 'n' roll in those on the North Side, often appearing in Native American headdress as a homage to his Cherokee ancestry. 31Those same South Side clubs that Harrington played in nurtured the talent of singer Delores LaVern Baker, whose sultry vocals broadened the palette of rock 'n' roll. She was born in Chicago in November 1929. Her aunt, a well-known blues singer, Merline Johnson, often let the young LaVern sit in on her recordings. LaVern first sang in a Baptist choir and was still a child when she started singing in the South Side clubs. At the tender age of seventeen, she performed at Club DeLisa, possibly the most prestigious nightclub in the city. In the early 1950s, she recorded for several local labels but found national chart success difficult to achieve. Baker eventually prospered when she signed with Atlantic Records. She reached number 14 on Billboard with her "Tweedlee Dee" single in 1955. The following year, she released "Jim Dandy, " which made it to number 17 in the charts, and "I Cried a Tear, " which reached number 6 in 1958. 32 Her energetic stage performances won Baker an appreciative audience in the local clubs and at the touring rock 'n' roll package shows. Movies with a rock 'n' roll soundtrack became increasingly popular with the young moviegoing audience, and in 1956, Baker starred in Rock, Rock, Rock! alongside Chess acts Chuck Berry, the Moonglows, and the Flamingos, and the following year she made an appearance in Mister Rock and Roll. In April 1956, Ebony magazine called her the "high priestess of rock 'n' roll" and marveled at her stage presence. "Throwing herself into every performance, " the magazine noted, "she belts out blues with tremendous energy, using sexy gestures and daring body movements that create a unique emotional experience for listeners. "33 On promotional posters, she was described as "the gal who put the rhythm in the blues. "34 Baker's career stalled in the 1960s, and she relocated to the Philippines in 1969. In 1991, LaVern Baker became the second female solo singer after Aretha Franklin to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 35With Black singers like LaVern Baker climbing the national charts, record companies started to employ white artists to cover and often soften the sound of original rhythm and blues tunes. Just as Baker's "Tweedlee Dee" entered the hit parade, pop singer Georgia Gibbs released a cover that far outsold the original. Others, including Pat Boone, followed a similar path and made a fortune by covering songs originally performed by Black artists. 36To confirm Chicago's reputation as the hub of rock 'n' roll, all the leading lights of the genre lined up to play at the city's major concert venues. With his single "Rock Around the Clock" sitting at the top of the Billboard chart, Bill Haley played at the Chicago Theater in the downtown Loop district in July 1955. The following May, he headlined "The Biggest Rock 'n' Roll Show" at the cavernous International Amphitheatre, an arena adjacent to the Union Stock Yards that was more accustomed to staging rodeos than music shows. 37 The Civic Opera House hosted several rock 'n' roll concerts. Bill Haley appeared there on November 24, 1956, and Little Richard on April 12 of the following year. 38 On the back of his hit singles "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire, " Jerry Lee Lewis became a regular fixture at the Opera House, playing there in December 1957, March 1958, and April 1958. On the latter occasion, he headlined an Alan Freed "Big Beat" package show that included Buddy Holly on the bill. 39 Elvis Presley played his first concert in Chicago when he performed at the International Amphitheatre on March 28, 1957. Elvis took to the stage wearing a gold leaf suit and matching gold shoes, and according to the Chicago Tribune, he "cuddled his guitar, gyrated, and turned the International Amphitheater into a shrieking mass of 12, 000 teenage fans. "40African American deejays like Arthur Leaner, who broadcast under the name Al Benson, brought the exciting sounds of R&B music into the homes of Black Chicagoans. Before becoming a deejay on WGES, Benson was a pastor, probation officer, and cook on the Pennsylvania Railroad, but he found his calling on the radio. In a poll undertaken in 1948 by the leading African American newspaper in the nation, the Chicago Defender, he was designated "Mayor of Bronzeville. " He "won by the largest vote ever polled in a contest, " receiving "a record 1, 416, 700 votes, " the Defender claimed. 41 Benson put his popularity down to his ability to communicate on the same level as his African American audience. "Native talk, I guess. I talk the way common people of my race do. They understand me. "42Other radio deejays, such as Richard Stamz, Herb "The Kool Gent" Kent, and "The Mad Lad" E. Rodney Jones, became well known in the Black community, but as Stamz, the self-styled "Crown Prince of Disc Jockeys, " admitted, "Al Benson was the biggest black disc jockey in the United States. "43 In the face of detractors, Benson defended R&B music as an authentic expression of the Black experience. "It is a fact that rhythm and blues songs and spirituals were, for the most part, created by them and their ancestors. We can hardly resent a creation of our own. "44 Benson booked prominent entertainment venues such as the Regal Theater to showcase the cream of rhythm and blues artists. When he audaciously booked the Civic Opera House, friends warned Benson that he had gone too far and would lose money on the show. "About 400 were turned away, " he subsequently bragged. "They had to call out a special police detail to control the crowd. We grossed around 14, 000. "45More than previous generations, youngsters could afford the products of the music industry. While World War II devastated the economies of Europe, the US emerged from the war as the world's economic superpower. Most Americans shared in this wealth. Median family income adjusted for inflation nearly doubled between 1946 and 1960. 46 The introduction of cheaper record players and 7-inch vinyl singles, which replaced the more expensive gramophone players and shellac records, and the proliferation of jukeboxes further fueled record sales. In 1954, the US music industry sold 213 million worth of records, but by 1957, record sales had more than doubled to 460 million and increased further to 698 million by 1963. 47 Black artists shared in the success. "From 1955 to 1963, the number of Top Ten hits by black artists had increased by 50 percent, " noted author Daniel J. Wolff, "and an entire teenage generation, both in the United States and England, had absorbed the sound. "48Rock 'n' roll may have derived from African American roots, but it quickly crossed over to an enthusiastic white audience. Youngsters enjoyed the not-so-subtle sexual innuendos that featured in many of the songs. But the lyrics appealed less to the young audience than the loud sound and wild abandon of the performers. Teenagers loved the chugging riffs, innovative rhythms, and heavy beat of the music that emanated aggression, energy, and defiance. While the decade's big bands and popular balladeers were glossy and restrained, rock 'n' roll exuded raw power that touched young people on a visceral level. 49No deejay was more important in popularizing rock 'n' roll among a white audience in the Windy City than Jim Lounsbury. Born in Iowa in February 1923, Lounsbury made his name playing rock 'n' roll on Chicago radio stations WIND, WGN, and WJJD. The combination of his mature, velvety voice and the raucous sounds of rock 'n' roll captured the hearts of the young teenage audience. The tall, handsome Lounsbury went on to present the television show Bandstand Matinee, Chicago's version of American Bandstand, on WGN-TV. "Bandstand seemed simple enough at first, " the Tribune reported in June 1955. "Just play a few records, let the kids dance, add a couple of guest stars. But the success of the show was unbelievable: teen-agers literally rioted to get in. "50 Lounsbury continued to use the winning formula as the presenter of Record Hop, broadcast on Chicago's WBKB station from 1957 to 1962, and Danceville USA, which aired on the same channel in the summer of 1963. 51In addition to bringing rock 'n' roll to a broader audience on radio and TV, Lounsbury became one of the first Chicago deejays to stage record hops, otherwise known as sock hops, because the dancers would leave their shoes at the door to save wear on the floor. In high school gymnasiums, ballrooms, roller rinks, and church halls, Lounsbury played the latest records, presented live acts, and organized dance contests, the winners of which would often appear on his Bandstand Matinee show. Lounsbury was in such high demand that he piloted his own plane to his numerous engagements across the Midwest. 52Lounsbury's radio and TV commitments and numerous public appearances kept him busy, but he still found time to manage several local groups, including the Deltones, a white doo-wop group from the West Side of Chicago. Doo-wop became one of the city's most popular forms of rhythm and blues music as it appealed to youngsters like Sam Basile and Tommy Burton, who enjoyed performing but had little money to purchase instruments. "Well, we were in grammar school, and we must've been about 10 or 11 years old, and we used to go to the corner of Harrison and Kilbourn where there was a little candy store, " Sam recalled. "A Jewish fellow—I think his name was Al Gold—and his wife owned it, and they had a jukebox in there. Tommy and I used to get our dimes together, go into the candy store, and on the back wall, they had the big old jukebox, and we'd put a dime in, and we would play songs by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. "53The two boys enrolled in Marshall High School, a predominantly African American school on the West Side, where, with the help of their new school friends, they developed their singing style. "The black kids in high school were the ones that sort of took us under their wing and mentored us into doing doo-wop, " Sam remembered. One who helped the freshmen was the future soul music star Dee Clark, who sang with the Kool Gents at the school jamborees. Now joined by Ronnie Howard and Ronnie Buonaro, the Deltones practiced in the school bathroom, where the porcelain provided an excellent echoey sound, and performed on local street corners, elevated trains, and buses to startled passengers. "On the way to North Avenue Beach, we'd be singing, and the people on the bus would love it, " Sam claimed. Not everyone, however, was so appreciative of the boy's efforts. "There was a lady that lived above the drugstore. Once in a while, she'd open the window and shout, 'You guys are too loud, it's 10 o'clock at night, ' and then throw a glass of water on us. " With no musicians available to back them during rehearsals, the boys banged on a mailbox for musical accompaniment. "If you hit the sides of the mailbox, you get that dee